It is August 1961, John Kennedy is president, and America is about to lose its innocence. On the west side of Evansville, Indiana, the Reitz High School Panthers football team practices in the heat of the day, led by their fierce coach, Earl Doggett, who chomps on antacids, never rewards for good behavior, and enforces hellish punishment for mistakes.
Tony Reavis is an honor student and Eagle Scout who lives with his family in suburbia. Ray Moon lives with his divorced mother and seven siblings in a tiny shotgun shack on Pigeon Creek. Tony is college bound. Ray is destined for blue collar work. The only trait they share is a passion for pummeling whoever is unlucky enough to line up across from them on the football field. As the team works its way to becoming the only high school team in modern football history to play an entire season without allowing a point, President Kennedy is deciding the fate of Tony and Ray as he sends sixteen thousand young men to South Vietnam.
Once There Were Green Fields is the tale of a history-making Indiana high school football team during the early 1960s as they battle on the field and in the jungles of Vietnam-all in the name of winning.
